


You're So Fuckin' Special

by lordkrisdemort



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Angst, Fantasy, Little Mermaid Elements, M/M, No Happy Ending Fest, Unhappy Ending, no happy ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-10
Updated: 2020-03-10
Packaged: 2021-02-28 08:20:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,807
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22966825
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lordkrisdemort/pseuds/lordkrisdemort
Summary: He only needs to see Chanyeol once again.
Relationships: Byun Baekhyun/Park Chanyeol
Comments: 5
Kudos: 43
Collections: No Happy Ending Fest - 2019





	You're So Fuckin' Special

**Author's Note:**

> **Prompt #:** Self-prompt  
>  **Prompt:** The classic mermanxhuman trope but less the drama and tragedy, more the tears nonetheless.  
>  **Pairing/Main Character(s):** Baekhyun/Chanyeol  
>  **Side Characters(if any):** Sehun  
>  **Word Count:** 3.8k  
>  **Author's note:** No one will die out of curse, I promise :)
> 
> I dedicate this to my child Celine; this whole story was based on her ever so amazing fanart. I'm honored to bring your drawing into the world of words.

For a being that was born and raised under the sea for decades, Baekhyun cherishes the skies above the surface of the water a little bit too much more than his fellow merpeople.

He loves the blue hues when the sun is high. He loves the twinkle of the stars scattered across the darkness of the night. Particularly, he loves it when the sun rises slowly yet surely to light up the whole world. Thus, he always makes sure to take as many hours as possible to stay afloat, hanging by the deck at his favorite shore, staring at the skies while humming random melodies.

However, in the decades of his existence, somehow it’s only today that he engages himself in a contact with the counterpart of their beings on land; a human, and a boy while at it.

Or maybe the human is not really a boy. Humans have much shorter lifespan than merpeople, thus they age quicker. Using his limited knowledge about humans, Baekhyun concludes that this one must be a young adult already.

The said young adult coughs hard, spitting water to every possible direction. It was minutes ago that Baekhyun saved the human from almost drowning in the water; he was absentmindedly watching the human attempting to stand on his surfing board for a few times until the human just disappeared between the waves, and he immediately came to the rescue without second thoughts.

Finally, the human comes to his senses, his eyes wildly looking left and right before finding one thing to fix them upon; a young man, hanging by the edge of the wooden surface of the deck. His gaze then trails to the tip of the man’s ears, which look just a little bit too pointy for a normal human being.

“Oh,” the human says, “and there I thought I was the only one with weird ears.”

Baekhyun frowns before actually paying attention to the human’s ears. “You do have huge ones.”

“Why are you still in the water?”

“Uh,” Baekhyun mumbles before slapping the tip of his tail on the surface of the water, splashing the both of them, displaying the turquoise hues of the scales, “just because.”

The human’s eyes widen in pure awe.

“You’re a merman!"

He resists the strong urge to roll his eyes. If merpeople can be neutral with humans' existence, then why do humans always seem to be shocked with theirs?

“You’re a merman. You saved me from drowning. You, a whole merman!”

Baekhyun, growing uncomfortable with the admiration in the human’s eyes, starts to turn around. “Just be careful next time.”

But the human just has to-

“No no no! Please stay!”

“Don’t leave yet! I have so much to ask you!”

“My chest still hurts, aren’t you worried?”

“I think my lungs are failing. You have to help me!”

To which Baekhyun stares at the human with narrowed eyes. “You’re making ridiculous excuses to make me stay.”

The human sighs. “It gets very lonely here, so.”

Something tugs inside his chest. The human is staring at him with wide, gleaming eyes, slanted eyebrows, and slightly pouty lips. How could he say no to such a face? “I’ll stay for a little while more.”

Grinning, the human fixes his weight on the edge of the deck. “I’m Chanyeol! And you are…?”

“Annoyed.” he mumbles. “Baekhyun. I’m Baekhyun.”

“Well, Baekhyun, thank you for saving me.” Chanyeol smiles. “You just prevented me from dying a lot sooner than I should be.”

“You’re welcome.”

“Are all merpeople very beautiful like you are?”

Baekhyun cringes. “I have no comment for your very biased opinion.”

Chanyeol sighs dreamily. “I think I’m in love with you.”

To which he replies with a sweet smile. “One more creepy sentence and I’ll drown you myself.”

“No, please, I’m sorry. Let’s talk about something else.”

“Like how you suck at surfing yet you just don’t know when to quit before you drown yourself?”

“... that,” Chanyeol grins sheepishly, “or music! I love music. I’m a music composer and a singer!”

“Boring.” Baekhyun snorts. But then his eyes rests upon Chanyeol. “I love singing, though.”

And that’s how their entire evening is filled with Chanyeol’s passionate words about music and Baekhyun’s stories, from how merpeople love to sing to the explanation of his family, having a father who holds some sort of authority and a bunch of brothers and sisters who act like they’re his adoptive parents just because he’s the youngest sibling.

Somehow, an evening with this human is not so bad for Baekhyun.

  
  
  


The air gets colder in each second, and Chanyeol has to call it quits for the night. He tells Baekhyun that he lives in a small beach house a few miles from the shore, and he’s been coming to the water almost every evening. Baekhyun suggests that Chanyeol surfs at another part of the beach with much calmer waves and softer wind next time, and Chanyeol quickly replies with a question instead;

"would you be there?"

Baekhyun shrugs; any part of the sea is fine for him. “I guess.”

With one last look, Chanyeol bids him a soft ‘bye’ for the night.

===

And true to his words, he meets Chanyeol again at the part of the beach he suggested the day before. Chanyeol tries to stand on his surfboard again, and Baekhyun just watches with second hand embarrassment reddening his face as Chanyeol falls again and again in not so cool way. Once Chanyeol hits his head with the tip of the board, and Baekhyun just bursts into laughter.

“You’re so pretty when you laugh.” Chanyeol comments dreamily.

Baekhyun splashes a handful of water at him.

Somehow, the next few days are filled with them building a friendship, Baekhyun's laughter upon Chanyeol failures, and Chanyeol’s blabbers about mundane things humans do everyday that he takes interest in observing. “Life is full of intertwined variables that create a story plot, a timeline, and God up there has been a very creative and meticulous author.” Baekhyun thinks Chanyeol dramatizes things for a living, but at the same time he loves how Chanyeol sees beauty even in the simplest thing.

Every day, Chanyeol brings along his guitar with him, and when they run out of things to talk about for the meantime, he strums them and sings. He asks Baekhyun to contribute, and Baekhyun sings to him melodies that he claims to be “so strange yet beautiful at the same time.” Baekhyun comments about how creative humans are with the words in their songs.

“Okay, so let me teach you a song. It's titled 'Creep' by Radiohead. But it's in English, it's a foreign lang-"

"I know English, you seahorse."

Chanyeol looks at him in awe, as always. “Oh my, you're perfect."

Baekhyun gets the full hang of the song in one evening.

===

One day, Chanyeol asks Baekhyun a question he never really thought of until then.

"Do merpeople die?"

"Of course we do. We aren't immortals."

"Then what happens when you die?"

He tells Chanyeol that when they die, they turn into foams that float on the surface of the sea water. It's a delicate process, almost invisible. Their soul flies towards the sun and joins the sea breeze that keeps the sailors company.

To that, Chanyeol smiles. "I'd love that."

Twenty four sunrises after their first encounter, Baekhyun learns that Chanyeol's time on Earth might not be as long as anybody else's on his age.

But when Chanyeol dies, he won't turn into foams. He'd be as still and cold as the stones, his soul leaving for the unknown. There is no certainty in what happens after, no promises whatsoever.

Baekhyun thinks that it's a shame for such a lively soul like Chanyeol to end that way.

"It'll be nice if I become foams as well." Chanyeol says. "Wouldn't want to burden my family and friends to bury me and do memorials."

"But if you become foams, you'd really be gone, with nothing to remind them of you."

Chanyeol smiles.

"That's what I want."

===

One night, Chanyeol lifts Baekhyun from the water and runs with him towards his own house, screaming and laughing along the way. Chanyeol puts him into this water-filled glass box that supposedly serves as a gigantic aquarium; which still isn’t big enough for him to completely sink in. His tail flaps at the tip of the glass wall, and Chanyeol is immersed in drawing as he blows into the hole of the bubble wand in his hand, making bubbles float.

“I don’t feel like going yet.” he tells Chanyeol when he’s offered a ride back to the shore. Chanyeol smiles, ever so happily, and Baekhyun thinks he’s found his new favorite thing from the land.

They spend the rest of the night talking, hands brushing against each other, exchanging whispers and laughter.

“Would you believe that I’m really in love with you?” Chanyeol says at some point.

And Baekhyun looks into a pair of eyes that are genuine and loving. How did he come to love them so much? With his hand, he gestures Chanyeol to lean closer in, and when Chanyeol does so, he puts a hand under Chanyeol's chin to pull him even more towards him.

He lands a soft kiss on the apple of Chanyeol's left cheek.

“I would now.”

===

Some days, Chanyeol doesn't come to the shore, probably being unwell to. Baekhyun waits patiently under the stars. In those days where Chanyeol is not present, Baekhyun misses him terribly.

He misses Chanyeol's boisterous laugh, the way he gets scared of the cold water first before dipping in, the way his eyes light up whenever he talks about music, the way he looks at life as a beauty, the way he concentrates when he draws, the soft smile on his lips when he listens to him talking.

And thirty six sunrises after their first encounter, Baekhyun finally sees what his brothers and sisters had told him once about being in love.

But his worry wins over the new bubbling feelings, and after a few times of Chanyeol’s absence, Baekhyun finally communicates his concerns.

"Where does it hurt?"

"Somewhere inside my head."

"Can't you make it better?"

"I couldn't. It's too late for me to heal."

Baekhyun contemplates with his next question.

"Then will you be in pain until you... die?"

There’s a pause before Chanyeol answers calmly. "Not really. Maybe months or weeks before my death, I won't be able to recognize that I'm in pain."

Slowly, things start to change between them. Eventually Chanyeol doesn't get on his surfboard anymore. Sometimes, if not most, he forgets to bring his guitar along. Some days, Chanyeol walks towards the shore, only to spin around and go back home. Something’s going very wrong with Chanyeol, but Chanyeol won’t tell him what it is.

Slowly, Baekhyun’s losing Chanyeol.

He’s losing him right when he’s just found him.

But one evening, Chanyeol does sit on the edge of the deck, waiting for him. Baekhyun appears and rests his arms on the wooden surface as usual. But this Chanyeol doesn't talk.

This Chanyeol just sits with a smile under the moonlight with him, staring at him occasionally.

And Baekhyun realizes he's in love with everything that's Chanyeol because even in the absence of the voice he had grown to love so much, Baekhyun's heart still reaches out, still yearns severely, for the human boy whose gaze embraces his whole figure ever so gently.

===

But of course, the sun always rises, and Chanyeol has to go back to his house for some rest.

And ever so softly, Baekhyun whispers just as Chanyeol turns.

"I wish you don't have to go."

Chanyeol chuckles. "I'll be back later."

But Baekhyun meant more, much more than that.

He's not a fool. He's met with lots of humans during his existence, and all he knows is one thing; it's not a celebration when they cease to live. Grief would always linger around their loved ones, no matter how many years have passed by. He, too, has experienced mourning for a sailor he befriended, who died of old age.

And it messes up Baekhyun's mind that Chanyeol would cease to live so soon.

Yet he doesn't tell Chanyeol his worries. Even when they meet each other again the next day, he doesn't say it.

As they hold each other in the water around the deck, with Chanyeol's hand gripping on the edge of the wooden platform to keep himself afloat and his other free hand constantly locking Baekhyun flush against him while roaming around his back, running up and down to touch his skin and scales, Baekhyun still doesn't say anything. He chooses to bury his words into the expanse of Chanyeol's neck, lips grazing and sucking the skin there; he hums in satisfaction when Chanyeol lets out a gasp. He swallows in the words as Chanyeol claims his lips, full and wet, careful with the slightly sharpened tips of Baekhyun's teeth.

When they release each other with dreamy sighs, Baekhyun wonders if he should tell Chanyeol another thing; his feelings for him.

The words get swallowed again. Next time. He'll think it all through so he could tell Chanyeol all of them next time.

  
  
  


But after that night, Chanyeol stops coming.

There's no sign of him on the sands, on the deck, around the white house Baekhyun can barely see from the shore.

There's just no Chanyeol.

There's a heavy feeling in his chest, severe, painful, wrenching. He screams, voice muffled in the water.

And there's no Chanyeol.

  
  
  


He can feel himself turning insane.

What's going on? What happened with Chanyeol? Why didn't he tell Chanyeol what he felt when Chanyeol was still there in his arms?

He has to see Chanyeol. There's a way. He'll have to take it 

He reaches out for his brothers and sisters. They’re all gathered, as if they’ve been expecting him. "I have to get up there." he states. "Let me go up there." he begs.

"There's a spell", his sister says dreadfully. "It turns your fin into legs," she adds.

"But there's a price for it", his brother warns him.

"Anything." he whispers. "I'd give anything."

"By the time the sun rises for the third time after you walk, you would have to have taken the life of the human who loves you as much as you love him." his brother explains.

"If you fail, you'd lose your voice, and your legs would lose their ability to move."

“I am strongly against this.”

“It’s up to you, Baekhyun.”

“How come it’s up to him?”

“Because we’re not the one in pain.”

With no reconsideration whatsoever, Baekhyun takes his chance. A spell can't be that cruel, he thinks. He only needs to see Chanyeol once, tell him things he wants him to know. He'll be back before the third day. No one shall be harmed.

He only needs to see Chanyeol once again.

  
  
  


And so, for the first time in his life, Baekhyun walks.

He has no time to bask in the feeling of the ground beneath his feet. He quickly reaches for the house, having the way there printed in his mind.

But there is no Chanyeol there as well. There is only his guitar, scattered notes, and drawings.

Baekhyun wears a pair of clothes abandoned on the bed. He then takes a look at the drawings on the floor. Some are stained, some are unfinished.

But all of them, every single one of them, has him in it.

And on the back of the pages are scribbles of words.

'He's Baekhyun.'

'Can't believe I really met a merman.'

'My cerebellum is mean to me. I can't surf anymore. Will Baek be mad if I tell him I was a surfer?'

'He's so beautiful.'

'He sings so beautifully.'

'I wish I can love him.'

There's a drawing of a merman, sitting inside the water tank, turquoise scales gleaming, tail flapping upward, and lips blowing into the bubble wand. It's him. There's also a writing on the back.

'I wish I can always remember loving him.'

He cries.

A merman cries.

A merman has legs, breathes with a pair of lungs, and cries.

Baekhyun is scared of what he has become, and is scared more of the possibility of never seeing Chanyeol again.

But through his tears, he sees the door being opened and a figure walking in.

"Oh," the man says, "you're Baekhyun."

He can only nod.

"I'm Sehun. Chanyeol told me about you. A lot. Maybe he doesn't remember it by now." the man offers him a hand. "Do you want to see him now? I don't know... until when will we be able to."

He immediately takes the hand. Sehun takes him away from the house, on the way to Chanyeol, and Baekhyun feels immense pain in his chest, something he cannot explain. “Do your chest hurt randomly?” he asks Sehun.

Sehun shakes his head. “Only when I’m unwell, I guess.”

Then he is very, very unwell.

  
  
  


Chanyeol is resting, on a strange looking bed, in a strange looking place, with strange things stretched out across his body.

Upon his arrival, Chanyeol opens his eyes. There's no glint of remembrance in those orbs.

"He can't recognize anyone now." Sehun comforts him.

But Baekhyun begs to differ. Maybe he can remind Chanyeol of something. Something that Chanyeol shouldn't forget.

And the only thing he can come up with is -

"When you were here before,

couldn't look you in the eye.

You're just like an angel.

Your skin makes me cry.

Oh, you float like a feather,

in a beautiful world."

Chanyeol's gaze softens.

"You're so fuckin special.

I wish I was special."

"But I'm a creep.

I'm a weirdo.

What the hell am I doing here?

I don't belong here."

And Baekhyun cries again. Harder than before.

What is he even doing here? In a place where he doesn't belong, with the man he loves yet doesn't remember him?

However, a frail hand lifts up to wipe the tears away from his cheeks.

"I know that voice."

“I know that voice.” Chanyeol whispers. "Feel like I've heard it lots of times."

Baekhyun nods.

"I'm so sorry I can't remember."

With a broken heart, Baekhyun smiles. "We met at the beach so many times. You always heard me singing while surfing."

Chanyeol mirrors the smile. "I was a musician and a surfer!"

"You were."

"Can you sing more?"

And Baekhyun gives in to the wish.

===

And then, two days later, Chanyeol passes away.

He dies in his sleep, a few hours after midnight. No pain, no struggle. It's a delicate process, almost invisible.

Baekhyun thinks of the last moment they share; Chanyeol told him about the merman he had developed a crush for. “He was so beautiful.” Chanyeol said, voice gentle, almost inaudible.

It’s a shame that Chanyeol never got to know that the merman loves him back.

"Goodbye, my love."

Baekhyun goes back to the shore, waiting for his fate.

There's no way he could avoid the consequences. Since the start, he knows he'd end up paying the price in a cruel way. Never, even for once, did he ever consider killing Chanyeol.

He just waits, Chanyeol's smile in mind.

But when the sun rises, nothing happens to him.

He still can sing his heart out. His legs still work.

Baekhyun is confused. Was the warning not true? His brothers and sisters couldn’t be wrong, and spells never disobey their price.

However, after thinking for long, he finally finds the answer;

Chanyeol did not love him at the time he gained the ability to walk, because by then, Chanyeol had forgotten him.

Chanyeol's love for him was kept neatly in the past, in the few weeks before. Back in those days when he sat by the deck, playing his guitar, singing by his side. Back at that night when they were in his living room, the tip of Chanyeol’s thumb caressing the bottom of his lip like a feather. Back at their night at the deck, when Chanyeol stared down at him, eyes full of love words untold. Back at their last afternoon in the water, when Chanyeol sighed contently into his mouth.

And it means that as long as there's no human on land who loves him as much as he loves them, he'd still have his voice and he'd still walk just fine.

Baekhyun laughs, but not out of happiness.

It's out of bitterness.

Because he knows he'll never love again.

===

Days, weeks after Chanyeol's death, Baekhyun decides to continue living Chanyeol's life.

He learns music. Things that Chanyeol used to do. Sehun, who apparently was Chanyeol's 'manager', helps him a lot with it.

He swims every evening. Most of the time his brothers and sisters visit him to talk about the most random things. His father comes to see him alot as well, always convincing him that he did nothing wrong, that his entire family loves him all the same.

He learns to surf. Fails for the first tenth time. It’s a very challenging sport after all.

At the eleventh attempt, he finally stands on his board, a little bit wobbly.

And as he surfs along the wave, grinning in satisfaction, he swears he hears the sound of Chanyeol's laugh, ringing in his ears along the breeze.

Maybe it's Chanyeol's soul keeping him company.

“I did it!” he shouts. “I did it, love!”

He really misses his beloved.

  
  
  


And true to his own words, Baekhyun never finds another love for him. His memories of Chanyeol are enough to keep his love intact.

Years go by quickly on the land, in his human form, and when his hair has turned all grey, Baekhyun walks back into the water.

He pauses a while, thinking back to the first time he found Chanyeol, to the moments where Chanyeol smiled at him.

And he walks again.

He drowns himself into the water. When he opens his eyes, he sees his brothers and sisters, looking youthful as ever. One of his sisters holds his hand gently.

"Are you ready to turn back?"

They can turn him into a merman again.

But Baekhyun sees no light in it.

"Just let me go." he says with a smile.

"I've lived a life. It's enough."

"I want to see if I can meet him again. Somehow."

"But even if I can't, it's alright. I've had enough time. Just enough time."

"Thank you, for seeing me."

"It's okay."

"Let me go."

And they do let him go, after sharing one last embrace.

Despite his human form, Baekhyun's body slowly dissipates into white foams on the surface of the sea water.

And when the sun rises, he's no more.

There's an echo of the laughter he shared with Chanyeol from decades ago.

  
  


* * *


End file.
